What's brewing at Yahoo! India?

Close on the heels of the announcement by Yahoo! India CEO Deepak Chandnani that he was quitting the company for "personal reasons", comes the news that Rajiv Hiranadani, head of all-India sales at Yahoo!, has put in his papers. Hiranandani, who resigned earlier this week, is supposedly exploring "other options in the media space". Thirty-three-year old Hiranadani, who joined the company in June 2000 (even before the company's India launch), was unavailable for comment.

For quite some time now, the tech world has been buzzing with rumour that Yahoo! India is on the verge of downing shutters, but company officials say the recent spate of resignations is part of a restructuring process. That's hardly surprising, especially at a time when revenues are under pressure for almost all Internet portals.

But what sent the rumour mill into an overdrive was the departure of top Yahoo! India executives like country head Deepak Chandnani and Arun Gupta, associate director, business development. Chandnani, however, had denied any move by Yahoo! Inc to downsize its India operations. Talking to media persons recently he had said, "There are rumours that Yahoo! India is shutting down. I can categorically say that they are only rumours and Yahoo! India would continue in the current form."

But by all indications, the Santa Clara (California)-based Internet services company is seriously looking to scale back its operations in the country by end 2002. While a handful of Yahoo! executives have already quit, another three/four senior managers are expected to follow the footsteps of Chandnani and Hiranandani over the next couple of weeks. The reasons are not very difficult to fathom.

As a senior industry observer explains, "The online advertising market is around Rs 30-32 crore in India. Yahoo! India commands about 30 per cent of that; which in real terms translates to revenues of close to Rs 9 crore. With 40-45 people in India, a revenue figure of Rs 8-9 crore is certainly not reflective of the most viable of business models." Today, Yahoo! India might have a varied range of properties, but insiders claim that 80 per cent of traffic comes from just three of them. These include Yahoo! mail, messenger, chat and to a very small extent greetings.

Incidentally, beginning this month, the new country head for India is Darren Gosher, the Sydney-based regional finance director of Yahoo! South Asia (including Australia). And helping Gosher with ground operations is Neville Taraporewalla, 38, who joined Yahoo in May this year from Mid Day Multimedia. Taraporewalla, who joined Yahoo as head of sales, has been re-designated director sales and business development. © 2002 agencyfaqs!